Simply enjoying the day (without over-analyzing the joy)

The past couple of months have been pretty rough - without getting into nitty gritty details, I woke up this morning thinking about writing a blog about some artwork I had seen at the Carnegie Museum of Art this past week...some artwork that helped me to find some solidarity and comfort with other characters in these particular scenes. Instead, I've decided to write about my today and how much I've simply enjoyed it. Why? Because it hasn't been until recently that I've learned to enjoy the subtitles in life, or boast about them to others. I've noticed that when I write, I often want it to be of significant substance. My desire is to have it be filled with thought provoking metaphors and insights that I've pondered over the past weeks, and incorporate a few vocabulary words that I don't often use in everyday speech (to keep my skillz up to date :-) ). Surprisingly, I tend to be a little bit of a melancholic from time to time, deep down. God's been challenging me lately to understand Him and the life He's graced me with by simply experiencing the beauty of His creation.... It's been a tedious process, but I'm trying to learn to experience His creation and life without over analyzing or psychoanalyzing every single situation or encounter I have within my relationships. Some experiences in life, however small, are just gifts from Him that are meant to be pleasing and enjoyable, not mistrusted and scrutinized...even if these experiences sound boring to others. Life doesn't always have to be melancholic, or a drama, or involved with anything particularly important in the world's eyes, in order to have depth and substance - I 've been wondering if joy and beauty perhaps have just as much depth...I took pictures to record how great today really was.

So - today was a beautiful gift! For November, it felt unseasonably warm. With the extra hour gained through daylights savings time, I stayed sleepy-eyed in bed until 10:30am. The burnt orange leaves outside my window woke me by reflecting sunlight into my eyes.

Ten minutes later, I walked over to Whole foods to purchase a bagel and cream cheese with a small coffee. On my way, I heard a screeching noise from above, a chirping noise that, since childhood, I had always associate with birds. Instead, I was surprised to find this chirping was coming from a squirrel calling out from a electrical wire! It's taken me 6+ years of living in the city of Pittsburgh (vs. the 18 years of living in the country/suburb of Mechanicsburg) to discover that, what I had thought were crow or pigeon mating calls, were actually SQUIRRELS!!!

After returning from Whole Foods with my bagel and coffee, I decided to treat myself to "breakfast in bed". I began reading Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" - a book I have always wanted to read but never got around to. Thus far, I have found Mr. Bennett to be the most clever and humorous character, and Mr. Darcy to be most fastidious and arrogant - despite his coming around to having an interest in Miss Elizabeth Bennett. If a man is to be so rude to say to a woman that she is merely "tolerable" but not worth dancing with, I should hope she never come around to having an interest in him! How inconsiderate, and will this pride ever change in him!?  One has to wonder...I had very high expectations of him! I also learned a few new words such as "mien" = a persons look or manner. Apparently, Mr. Darcy had a very "noble mien". :-)

At 1:00pm, I was off to meet my friend Jessica at Phipp's Botanical Garden. Jess and I share a similar interest in flowers; I am a member of Phipp's thus is makes it easy to visit often. Today was the last day of the  Fall flower show, and most of the rooms were filled with various types of mums. "Spray mums". Absolutely lovely!

Soon here, I'll be off to the 6PM at St. Paul's Cathedral. This will be a beautiful closing of the day - intimacy shared with Jesus. Our women's group will be meeting this evening to meditate on a reading about "The Way of the Cross" from the book "Divine Intimacy" - also very much anticipated time with some lovely friends!

Overall, my day was very much enjoyed. What else more is there to say? Thank you Lord for a beautiful, restful, enjoyable Sunday!

Learning to Love Fire

This past August, my friend Angelina and I had the opportunity to backpack through the back country of Yosemite National Park for four days and three nights. It was the one of the most inspiring and liberating experiences of my life, with God's splendor and glory being manifested at every cliff edge and over every mountain peak...

One of the most unique inspiring moments of the trip actually came at some point after our trip was completed, as a small group of us (plus our guide) were driving through the park in a van back to the initial campground. As I was peering out the window, observing the beauty that was spread around us, I couldn't help but notice a short distance away a gleaming blaze of fire and plumes of smoke hovering over a large portion of the forest. Alarmed, I immediately pointed this out to others in our van. "Oh no! There's a forest fire! I hope it's not spreading!...Is there any way for someone to control this, to stop this!?"

My concerned questions were shared by others in the van...after witnessing the pristine artistry of nature in YNP, we were horrified to think that such a natural disaster could destroy it within a few days. I think these concerns were well intentioned based on the small amount of knowledge we had on forest fires in general - that is, after being educated by Smokey the Bear, Bambi, and the daily 6pm news our whole lives, we understood forest fires only to be sources of environmental destruction, pain, and complete devastation. In our minds, FFs were always a sort of evil incarnate on earth, needing to be extinguished immediately before it spread any further.

Luckily, our enlightened tour guide from Yosemite Mountaineering School was able to shed light onto the situation. "No worries, guys. That's actually a controlled fire. Here in Yosemite, we call it "planned burning". The sequoia trees actually need to be burned sometimes in order to reproduce and form new vegetation. It kinda cracks open it's nut, so to speak!"

This new revelation took me by surprise at first. Sure enough, when I went home to Google "planned burning", I found it to be true. This nature needed fire. The article that I found most helpful to describe this "planned burning" was in a BBC article published in 2009, called "Learning to Love Forest Fires in Yosemite National Park."


>> Learning to Love Forest Fires in Yosemite National Park - BBC article

But scientists have come to realise that years of suppressing fire in Yosemite prevented the trees from reproducing. Excluding fire from the ecosystem allowed leaves and other vegetation to build up around the trees. The litter stopped seeds from germinating in exposed soil and a dense canopy of foliage blocked the sunlight from reaching the forest floor.

"I think that we need to see more fire and the benefits of fire," says Mr Smith.

"Without fire we already know the forest gets too dense with trees. When they get too dense, as the litter builds up more and more, you end up with more and more fuel, decades and decades and of fuel.
"We know that the longer period of time between fires, there's more fuel, fires are burning hotter these days, but if we have frequent fires, it consumes those fuels, and then fire can never be this great destructive force."

There is so much humanity can learn about ourselves, and in this, about suffering, simply from observing and meditating upon nature. This image of "planned burning" has recently become a great source of comfort and consolation for me as I experience the thick of some covertly experienced suffering in my own life.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. Romans 8 : 22 - 28

No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. 1 Cor. 13

I am not the only one who is groaning, but all of creation has been groaning. Lord, in the midst of our suffering, if all we can offer you are groans, may they be sufficient prayers of love to you. St. Padre Pio, pray for us. I think I will leave it at that for right now...

A Mosaic Life...hello world!

This afternoon, I decided to take my lunch break by heading over to the nearby art museum, just 2 blocks from where I work. I know it was somewhat capricious , but I became a member of the museum for the purpose of visiting during more lunch breaks...somehow, after working full-time, volunteering at the hospital, and taking a college class, life just felt sort of ...boring. Hence, this blog was born and I will now be at the museum twice a week, most likely. Visual arts have always held a special place in my life; the way one piece of traditional art can conjure up similar feelings in all of humanity shows that perhaps we are not so alone in our humanity after all...men 500 years ago have likewise experienced love, fear, loss, anxiety, victory, boredom, loneliness, and peace. Or the way an orange dot contrasted against a white canvas can bring up conversations with other friends on "what is art", which ultimately makes us draw together and come to understand that we have differing opinions, and gives us the opportunity to observe how we react to and deal with them.

In my mid-twenties, I feel I have the freedom and time to explore the Lord's will for my life, my emotional health, my interests, my talents, and also taking the time to understand some personal meanings in life. I have the space to seek the Lord, asking him to reveal the ultimate vocation he has for me, asking him to help me grow-up into a woman - drawing me out of adolescence and into intimacy. There is no professor evaluating my thoughts, no certain 'friends' at this time to criticize my actions and tell me "who I actually am" according to their personal judgement, no real person telling me I must "move up" in my working position. Just space...space to think, to feel, to live life according to God's will for my life. And not knowing much of where this is all going is scary as hell sometimes.

The reason this blog is named "A Mosaic Life" is because of the immense symbolism attached to a mosaic as a piece of art. After recently experiencing multiple losses and transitions in a short period of time, and realizing (rather than denying) certain painful situations I had grown up in, I am struck by how life is made beautiful by God nonetheless (even despite us having to struggle to let go and often experience pain and fear the process of letting go.) Like mosaics, in life there are usually contrasts of light times and dark times, and different shades in between to create a shadowing effect or buffering effect. At times, when I am only focused on the dark chunks, I wonder if perhaps I would have any light again, or if light in my mosaic life ever existed ... or the worst, if I even deserve to have light at all. But the fact of the matter is that, like mosaics, we must look at the colors as a whole, understanding that although we may not be experiencing a portion of light, our lives are made up of both - and both create a beautiful human being. This is us. The human being. The pinnacle of all creation, the pinnacle of all art.

Both light and dark will be expressed in this blog. I may not use perfect sentence structure or grammar to express my ideas, but this will be a work in progress. Perhaps the greatest thing I must continuously remember through this life I'm living now is that I have one important decision to make in regards my mosaic and to the lightness and darkness of my life.. I must choose to not be the artist, to not control where my dark portions goes, where my light portions go, or how much I should experience of each. I must let God decide where to place each color, and when. In doing so, I am giving to Him the choice of where and how much light and dark will come into my life's mosaic... There will always both, perhaps one color scheme to a greater degree than others. But in the end, when I take my few steps back and observe, I need to trust my life will be a beautiful piece of art, glorifying to Him. The colors and placements He chooses for me will be a far greater masterpiece than the mess of colors I would, and very often try to, anxiously throw around. If it were up to me, I'd probably throw in only sploches of yellow, red, and green ... which would probably shatter and mix together to make brown.... which kind of resembles dirt and poop...which is just not very beautiful to anyone...